*

10 pounds down 32 pounds to go!

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

"solid steel stairs"

it's the day of the smackdown. err. i'll let you know how it goes.

Monday, July 30, 2007

"like lipstick is a sign of my declining mind"

in my spaz and a half post of this morning i forgot some key things that i really want to remember. like how i was totally right that the first thing my dad would say to my sister about me was that i lost a bunch of weight. i suppose i should be happy that he was so impressed. i'm a little sad that there isn't anything more interesting for him to say about my life but if i'm honest it probably wouldn't matter. i could cure and cancer and it would still come in second when it comes to my dad. i'm even more sad that there genuinely isn't anything more interesting going on for me. a point that was hit home this weekend when some fit hit the shan at work. a mistake was made. we both admit it, we made a mistake. nothing was lost, unless you count a little time being frantic, but we're still scheduled to be reamed tomorrow by one of the higher ups.

all my years of not getting in trouble and getting good grades and staying under the radar is starting to get on my nerves. what is it i'm worried about? i have the most difficult time remembering that i'm not in high school anymore.

"Were you born this big a pain in the ass?"

long time no blog. i was busy bleeding from the head. and then visiting my sister on her whirlwind visit from slovakia. i was only there two days but we ate alot of crazy ameri-food. mostly ben & jerry's and peanut butter cups. she wanted an explanation for the elvis reese's and i just had none. i didn't even know they existed until this weekend. peanut butter, banana and chocolate...isn't technology fascinating? apparently i miss a lot of pop culture not having of the television. her students are always asking about american culture and since she hasn't lived here in ten years her knowledge is a bit scant. and i was no help at all. my shining moment was knowing who kelly clarkson was. heh.

170 as of today. i hadn't weighed in since wednesday when i rocked a 168. i was sort of hoping that tooth would be heavier. but i do now fit in those jeans i bought in, what, december? 6 months. i suppose if i were being honest i've kept clothing that didn't fit and was never worn much longer than that. years longer than that. 6 months is progress on the whole. and they're super cute so it was worth the wait.

i really feel like i should have more to say after such a lengthy absence but i just don't. we shopped, we ate, i jogged a little and it didn't feel too bad. it was a really nice visit with my sister and so much more relaxing than i remember her being. probably because the last time i saw her she was working 100 hour weeks in japan and our mom was dying. she's a much calmer person working in europe on a shoe string salary. we did a lot of bonding over our shared brokeness.

i've never known her to be such a discerning shopper. "that dress is seven dollars, i'd buy it if it were five." i talked her into a 15 dollar LL Bean tote at the outlet and she looked like i kicked her puppy until it rang up at 10. it was almost dissapointing since i've been saving up my laissez faire especially to go shopping with her. it turns out that's another difference between working in japan and slovakia. i thought she bought heels and suits all the time because she was a hot ass power suit kind of gal. apparently not. there was a very strict dress code in japan and in slovakia anything goes. it feels like i'm just getting to know my sister after all these years. i wonder if she feels the same.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

"The count of three isn't a plan. It's Sesame Street."

the toothpulling bastards use novacaine in a completely awake type procedure. i realllllly wish i hadn't asked. but uh, yeah, blog. i'll not be in tomorrow because i'll be sitting in my house weeping and bleeding and hopefully drugged. and probably not thursday because damn, what are sick days for if not that. i'll be back friday unless i die of infection. i'll let you know.

can you tell i don't want to do this extraction thing? does it show? i really don't. i think i've had so little medical/dental experience that i'm nervous on principal. i'd like to think it's not the pain because i've gotten tattoos and piercings and it hurts but i still went back and got more. but pretty much it's the pain. and the sound. i don't want to be awake to hear the loud ass squelch that will result from pulling something out of my skull. it's very cartoony in my head. and then the cartoon me speaks in a lisp and drives off with cartoon smoke coming out of the back of the car. you know all those early john cusack movies with the animation? like that. and then the rhino pulls out a bazooka and mows down the fluffy bunnies. the words of the day are random, and gratuitous violence.

runs for the home team today include "i think i lost two pounds which probably means i never gained 'em in the first place" and "dear god, my credit score finally went up again". the first is pretty self explainatory and the second, about frickin' time. i've been steadily plugging away at bringing that bastard up and my "credit snapshot" has been responsing to my efforts by not actually changing at all for months and then jumping a bunch of points. the relief is palpable. i can't wait to be debt free, but i want a kickass credit score to go with it. which you can't get without having debts. the system bites. but i guess i'm winning for the time being. yet another arena where perseverence eventually pays off.

Monday, July 23, 2007

"I believe that's the dance of a brave little toaster."

i read the harry potter on saturday and now i'm sortof sad that it's all over. not in a kill-joy the ending's sad way, just in an end of an era way. i wish i'd savored it a bit more. and i wish i'd read less while in the car because i still feel like my stomach is going to go all alien and burst over my work station. and maybe i shouldn't have eaten all of that ridiculously large "small" ice cream either. that probably didn't help. it was also the most frustrating part of my weekend on the "diet" front. not because i fell at the hurdle, i had planned on ice cream. one cone on the only saturday in july your boyfriend isn't working isn't so dreadful. but anyway, the frustration was because i was distracted and i ordered a small when i knew i should have gotten a kiddie size and as soon as matt got his i thought "shit, i'm going to have way too much ice cream" and then i got over it. and not two seconds later skinny bitch from massachusetts points to my cone and says "oh my god, that's the small, i'd never be able to eat all that!". and pretty much that's what i was thinking, but it still pissed me off. keep your tiny appetite observations to yourself lady!

obviously the problem here was my reaction and not what she said. i knew i had ordered too much and was way more upset than i needed to be by having had it pointed out to me by a skinny tourist. and then i was pissed when i was able to eat most of it. i kept thinking "two weeks ago i'd never have finished this". i still think that is true. i've been sort of wild and crazy this last week, as far as food goes. matt and i finished the last of the stached christmas chocolate, by which i mean matt ate 4 pieces and i ate the rest. and then i drank about 6 cokes last week. i didn't finish them but is that really the point. it's horribly true that when you bring these things back in to your life as a guest star they become season regulars way too fast. and then you use tv metaphor to symbolize that you've also been sitting on your ass a whole lot too.

all things considered 171 isn't terrible. all things considered i could also have a law degree and 7 children by now. i could also be an actress in hollywood or a bum in key west and all of these considerations and could be's are pretty much crap. i made bad choices last week. on impulse. on purpose. because i wanted to more than i wanted anything else right at that moment. i just have to accept that. so i can move on. that's what i need to do. get over it, move on, want better things more often. and less pirate growling behind the backs of tourists. aaargh!

Thursday, July 19, 2007

"Everyone is so considerate today. I should've slaughtered people weeks ago."

i think i might have used that one before, but, oh well. i'm much too lazy to check and really, who'll be bothered. i'm making a concerted effort not to be bothered today. i'm suzy sunshine today. i forgot to take matt's dinner out of the freezer, oh well...we'll have spaghetti. no big. and then i couldn't find anything to wear that i haven't already worn twice this week...but it's raining and cold today so i broke out the "so dark you can't tell i'm unshaven" tights and now i'm all happy and skirted. it's the glass is half full thursday. wooh!

so, what else is new? i expected to weigh in at about 173 today and it's still 170. the kitty caught a mouse this morning. it's better than her not catching them, but still disgusting, and meaning that i will spend another evening bleaching every inch of my house. wooh! for antiseptic surfaces. i'm starting to live like all of my house is potentially pestilential. i almost got anti-bacterial dish soap out of pure hysteria. those products are mind baffling, how do we think the species survived the middle ages?

apparently i'm rambling and all i can think about is book seven and next week's menu. i ordered two copies and neither will arrive on saturday because i am much too stubborn to pay for shipping. and now it's too late to upgrade so odds on i'll be buying another copy friday night or saturday morning. that's a super financial strategy. and even more perplexing...how many nights can matt eat frozen pizza before there's a revolution? i'm guess three. or i'm guessing that there will be three nights next week i really won't want to be june cleaver. the man says he can grill, but what if there's lightning? what will he do with so much dinner autonomy? i can see next week is going to be very big at our house.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

"Survival of the fittest, bro. And right now you ain't looking too fit."

i'm still cranky. hi! how are you? i'm thinking it's a good thing i still have movie candy. it's good for the soul. do i mean that literally? of course not. could i if i wanted to, sure. i guess i'm having some issues with black and white lately. not everything means something. not every day is indicative of the rest of your life. i really don't think that getting this wisdom tooth pulled out is going to ruin my slimming prospects eternally so no one needs to worry that i'm going to jump off a cliff. maybe it's just a strange email sort of a week. it's july, it must be the heat.

while eating pudding and ice cream might give me another week of maintaining, i'm just not that worried about it. the great idea behind two weeks on and two weeks maintaining was that it put me in the driver's seat to getting this whole thing the hell over with. i know i can do anything for two weeks and i know i can maintain well. i should've been doing that the whole time. shame i haven't got a time machine. or common sense. oh well, being fat hasn't killed me yet and it's unlikely that it will any time soon.

life goes on and i hardly ever jump in front of a bus because i'm not wearing a ten yet. i do want this to be over with. i want to stop thinking about it all the time. i want it to just be my life and not a project i'm working on. overall i consider myself lucky to be where i am. i could be thinner and running marathons and wearing smaller clothes, or i could be 300 pounds and my soul crushed by depression. i'm damn lucky to be where i am. small changes work for me. regular exercise and going vegetarian and using pre-measured sugar packets...it all works for me. but it might not have. i might have never got things turned around. i might have been licking the cream out of oreos right now. i know i'm lucky and i know that things are going to be ok. i'm never going to think i'm worth so little that i treat myself that badly again. i'm just not. i know it in my currently candy filled soul.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

"I just figured you'd be terrified, and I would be sarcastic about it."

do you ever look at your statcounter and think "wow, i'm so much more interesting when i'm not around."? i almost didn't show up today. i'm feeling of the grouchy and i was going to save you that...and then i didn't. sorry. my bad. i'm surrounded by stuff i'm not all that interested in doing. mostly work. work and snacks. i've been snacking like a mo-fo, not that it seems to have effected anything. still 169. maybe the act of reaching into the good'n plenty bag burns of the calories.

i'm eating my movie snacks a little late, more out of nostalgia than actual want. we're usually snackless at the movies because we're cheap bastards, although sometimes that means we just sneak something in. this weekend i snuck some bottled water for the harry potter movie. some for each of us as i didn't end up going alone. i felt like my purse looked suspiciously heavy. i'm always waiting for the smackdown when i do stuff like that. like cutting the tags off the mattress really puts the cartoon sheep in jail like in the commercial. it's not like contraband water is anything to worry about. a sack full of 100 grand bars would be so much more embarrassing. and now all i can think about is 100 grand bars. it's so been that kind of week. think, eat, feel ill.

it's supposed to be like that actually, this is hold on tight week, but i sort of felt diety this morning. like get yer skinny on should start early. and then i bought a giant bag of good'n plenty. oooh, and then i made a wisdom tooth pulling appointment. it's for next week because something that fun just shouldn't wait. and if i made it later in the summer i'd have convinced myself to move to guatemala first. i realllllly don't want this tooth pulled out. the anxiety, it's multiplying exponentially. and...i just realized that's smack in the middle of get your skinny on week. remember how i said something would go wrong there...i must be psychic.

the good thing with the tooth is that if all goes well it's going to cost about a tenth of what i had planned for. which i should be happy about, except i arranged things for a higher cost and now it's sort of weird. the money is now stuck in the teeth and eyeglasses fund. more eyeglasses, whooo. but i really didn't need to put so much money there when i could use it here, there and everywhere. how will i spend all my time when i don't have money to worry about?

Friday, July 13, 2007

triskaidekaphobia

i randomly hit my link for word of the day and that's what i got. fear of the 13th day of the month. i'm thinking i should have rented a bunch of slasher flicks for tonight. either that or we'll go see harry potter. tomato/tomahto. we've been trying to go every night since tuesday. shockingly matt didn't want to stick around bar harbor till midnight to catch the first viewing. not even to please me, that's how i knew he was sick. he's been a fevered mess most of the week and existing solely on soup. that's another neon "the boy is obviously dying" sign, a whole week without red meat or bacon.

i'm sort of hoping he's not up to the challenge of the theatre tonight. i'm a total hp nerd but i had the idea that i could hit a matinee by myself and i sort of love it. i don't think i've ever gone to a movie by myself and i'm feeling like i really want to. it seems so wonderfully frivolous, going to a movie alone. if we go tonight maybe i'll still catch a matinee. very diamonds on the soles of her shoes of me. reckless soul that i am. it's one of those mundane desires that won't make a difference to anyone but you. oooh, i'm so looking forward to it.

i guess it is a friday the thirteenth sort of day. we've had some spectacularly rude customers this morning, but i'm holding on to the 169 with the help of the skin on my teeth. which is a very weird saying isn't it? since we don't have skin on our teeth does that mean were not really holding on at all and in fact when someone says that they're on the edge of the precipice? i heart colloquial mysteries. that and i've been reading a lot of crazy ass blogs lately. why is it that the most unstable make the best writers? i wonder if you have to be a little nuts to let go and have the experiences that make your stories worth hearing. enduring and surviving depression gives you a unique view on the world, not that i think it's worth it. much better to be happy and boring, all things considered.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

blog-o

if blog-her just isn't healthy enough a conference for you, or if indeed the thought of chicago in july makes you want to cry, check out revolution health's joint venture with the oprah magazine. there's going to be a conference all about you, yourself and thou in miami this september and they're raffling off 5 free trips. who wouldn't want a free trip to miami?

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

"This isn't a needle in a haystack. This is a needle in Kansas.

169 and totally full of cookies. matt requested cookies last night, and since he's skinny enough to hide behind a lamp post, i obliged. the problem is that he refuses to take every last cookie with him to work. it's so hard for me to remember that people with normal relationships with food don't have to worry about how lonely the cookies are when you leave them at home. they pine, i know they do. so i took a few to work with me. just the two he left in a little baggy. and they're oatmeal so they're chock full of whole grain goodness. and chocolate. which is also, uhh, very healthy.

i'm not really decieving myself, i'm just feeling a little devil-may-care on the cookie front. or the food front at large. does anyone else go through days when you could ignore the existence of chocolate in the world with no trouble and then suddenly, the next day, you have to find and eat it ALLLLLLLL. i guess i'm on day two of that cycle, only it's been a few days of copious chocolate eating. it would probably have had no effect if i'd been walking/running every morning but uhm...i haven't since monday. insert excuses here. i just haven't felt like it. uninspired. it probably has something to do with the fog and the dark and the cold but that's just silly since i spent one whole winter getting up early and moving my ass. i'm just lazy lately.

i think i'm going to break with tradition and embrace the laze for a few days. and then go low carb again. i might just need to plan my months this way. two weeks of low carb eating, one week of maintaining and one week of holding on for dear life. that makes this week a maintaining week, and that means the cookies go to work with matt tomorrow. but next week, ahhh next week, we are so going out for ice cream if it's sunny.

i just thought of this "plan" the second i typed it, but i kind of like it right now. probably because i'm smack in the middle of the easy weeks. all plans sound awesome before the hard part starts. not that low carb eating is all that hard. most days are low carb days at my house anyway, but when i'm not strictly trying to avoid sugar i don't avoid it all that well. it's somehow easier when it's a blanket thing, all or nothing. wow, i'm pretty excited about that spur of the moment plan. it'll be interesting to see how well it goes when i really start.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

"Oh, yeah, fun was had. Also frolic, merriment, and near-death hijinks.

it's starting to bother me that i can't enter any titles. there are quips going unquipt here. it's just wrong. and other things that are wrong, apparently it's very hot on the east coast...except here where it is 52 degrees. i'm not complaining, i like the cold, it's just sort of screwing with my season clock. it's supposed to be summer, or something. whatever.

i suppose the farmer's market went well. one of the things i made sold completely and one sold not at all. it was a half successful venture. i'm doing a bit more on thursday and then taking a bit of a break. mostly because my vendor wants the goods the day before. you know why they sell the day old baked goods for half nothing? because they're crap. so i'm only going to do the things i can bake and sell the same day and have some control over how they're kept. should you put the cream cheese danish in the sun, err, probably not. call me crazy. so it's not as exciting as i had hoped but it's better than standing still. sort of.

so, 168. that's a relief. it was a very long weekend stressing over how things went at the farmer's market and there was a lot of chocolate eaten. and some potato chips. i think wielding the rolling pin must burn more calories than i thought because i rather expected a gain. it is very heavy. maybe i should jog with it. it would rock for self defense. which is sort of becoming a concern. i worried about running on the road because of the traffic, but now i worry about the parked cars. there have been a few trucks with guys hanging around my normal route. generally i just turn at that point and head back. i don't know enough of my neighbors to know who's a freak and who's not.

a few weeks ago they found a skull and jaw down the road, today they found a whole body. when we heard the news we thought it might have been our abandoned car with possible body in the trunk, but it wasn't. it's a totally different guy who's very definitely dead. it's all making the treadmill thing sound better and betterer. and i was so proud of myself for sucking it up until winter, now not so much. that or find my mace. atleast until people parts stop popping up. thank goodness i don't have cable, if i could watch law and order all day everyday i'd never leave my house at all.

Friday, July 06, 2007

"Are you going to torture me, or just bore me to death?"

i just made up some ingredient cards for my products. and i spaced walnuts on the banana muffins. whoops! guess they'll be nutless. c'est la vie. i could print them again but i'm trying not to nervous myself out of all competence. besides, nuts or no nuts, who cares. it's an experiment and it's supposed to be something i enjoy so i'm keeping it light. which is a hell of a lot of work. it's very "this is me breathing", if you know what i mean.

ironically, as i was reading the recipe to make up the cards i almost decided to try something new. i've always made this recipe in a big square pan but the recipe calls for lined muffin tins and gee don't they look cute! clearly i'm not evolving here. i'm asking for trouble thinking about shaking things up at this stage. silly silly silly.

dyan reminded me of a bunch of things i haven't thought about in a long while. so many feelings that i used to feel all the damn time, like the getting my money's worth at the soda fountain. it was a feeling that made me sad at the time, thinking that this is the sum of my life...worrying about a carbonated beverage. looking back on it now it's a punch to the gut. there are so many bits and pieces that go into changing your life. innumerable really. and of course that's what this is about. i keep finding myself reading blogs where people want to lose weight but don't want to change anything about their life. they want to eat at mcdonalds and take the elevator and aren't honestly willing to sacrifice anything and it's frustrating to read.

but it's more frustrating to live. i think of how hard it was for me at that stage and i cringe. the stage where you tell yourself you're trying to lose weight but you aren't really trying at all. you just say this to yourself so you can get through the day without crying too much. everybody goes through that right? the totally desperate but not quite ready to change stage. that has to be the worst of the process, the pre-beginning stage. what do they say about insanity? it's doing the same things over and over and expecting different results.

i'm happy to be at the place where i can recognize the difference between effort and fooling myself. and i'm especially happy not to be at a place where i spend my whole day passing moral judgement on my choices at subway. i'm glad that i wrote down those feelings. it was a very important part of the process, the being honest with yourself part. right now, as i go through every day running and having salad because it's summer and it's yummy and not because i'm punishing myself, i would not remember feeling so lost if i didn't write it all down. i'm also glad i was able to get beyond it, it seems like a rare gift.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

"I build each one of my days out of hope"

i'm always hopeful and confident when i try out a new recipe. sure, it'll work out fine and if it doesn't...the world will not end. i'm that cheerful until i pull the damn thing out of the oven. and most of the time the finished product is just fine. in some cases it's freakin' fantastic. and then there was yesterday. a lot of things went wrong yesterday and most of the day i wanted to break something. or somethings. i'd like to say i handle pressure well, and i'm certain that quality is among the myriad truth stretchings on my resume, but i really don't. i started my baking at 7 am and put my boss' birthday carrot cake in the oven by 7:30. and then matt came upstairs and said "what's this cup of flour for?". oh ho ho, what is the flour for indeed. the cake that is already in the oven.

i think i survived the ruining of the carrot cake pretty well, all things considered. i took stock of the fridge and what i had left to work with and found a recipe that would use the cream cheese for the carrot cake's frosting and be a little special for a birthday. i got that recipe ready to go and was more of less optimistic about it. and then apparently i stopped reading directions and rolled the very delicate dough on one of my dough boards. instead of in the pan as suggested. you know why they suggest that? because after you braid the dough over the filling you cannot move the bastard. luckily that recipe made two and i was able to learn my lesson without too much trouble. i guess i was alright at this point. relatively happy with way things were going. i had a little something for the birthday and five loaves of cinnamon bread for matt. i almost stopped here. i figured i could use the raspberry braid as a "sample" of my baking for the farmer's market folks and use the rest of the day to clean up the unbelievable mess of my kitchen.

i had promised to make cinnamon rolls but i wasn't feeling it at the time. matt talked me into it, saying a little practice wouldn't be so bad. and he was right. i had no real reason not to make the cinnamon rolls, i was just feeling sorry for myself. but i feel worse now because i went a tried a new recipe (from the book where the magic brownies and the miraculous pizza dough and the very pretty raspberry braid came from) and wow did it ever suck. i got some really great stuff out of that book and had every reason to hope the cinnamon rolls would be better than my usual, or at least just as good. sometimes i'm truly stunned by my own stupidity. you're starting a business, you want to make a good impression, so you pick a brand new recipe on a day that is definitely not touched by an angel. way to work the confidence mo-jo.

i could go on about stupid decisions i made and how i made things worse by trying to fix them being more rash than i was to start with, but i'd really rather just forget. i won't use that recipe again. and you know what, the raspberry cream cheese braid thing is freakin' amazing. my boss suggested i make it a staple for my farmer's marketing and that would probably be a very good idea. i'm trying to turn my frown upside down today so i can get a grip for friday's baking. i'm also going to get some big ass poster board and make a list like "Flour 1, 2, 3 cups" and a giant marker to check them off as i go. i can't believe i wasted so many ingredients because of pure thoughtlessness. that's what bothers me the most. a bad recipe is a bad recipe and you have to make it to know, but not being careful is just that and it'll cost me a fortune to screw up my baking for profit by making careless mistakes. (insert bitch slap here)

you know what's even more depressing? i was so busy rolling dough and hating myself i forgot to eat yesterday and i still weigh 170 this morning. verging on 171. that's just not right.

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

"It is a sham, but it's a sham with yams. It's a yam sham."

i'm making an effort to be punctual today. and not take 8 hours to write a post that's defunct by the time i publish it. my co-hort in baking is not at all worried about packaging. thank goodness. we're gonna go old school and put them in a basket. with napkins. i can just about put that together by friday.

i had a nice post written here, about walking and pushing further and taking time for me in the mornings. it was very hallmark channel. and then i checked the tracking on my new cookbooks from amazon and hello! they've been at the post office since last week. once again the box was on the floor. that is the most pathetic excuse ever. oh gee, i wouldn't want you to have to look on the floor. and really, what kind of excuse is that? who do you think put it on the floor in the first place. aargh. it's insane. i'm going insane here. all i have to do is buy a basket and a pack of napkins and i'm still going nuts. if i had real work to do for this venture i'd be crying in the corner. as it is i'm going out for thai for lunch. the owner is having an american idol week in honor of the holiday. he's playing the guitar and singing for all the customers. can't miss that, it would be un-american.

Monday, July 02, 2007

"I assume there's a perfectly reasonable and not at all insane explanation here."

this weekend i weighed in at 168, bought some new pants and made some killer brownies. although not so much in that order. the 168 sort of came and went throughout the weekend. the brownie testing will probably rear it's ugly head tomorrow and give me a gain, but whatever. i have too much baking to do to worry about it. i'm starting this weekend. good lord. i have so much mixing to do, it's crazy. it's too exciting, my brain is going to explode. and i thought finding 12A pants in the gap was going to be the highlight of my week. it's an amazing thing finding my size in that store. like st. peter at the gates. and their khaki's have a very special ass raising quality that makes them that much more desirable. it's an experience hard to top is all i'm saying.

it's taken me all day to get that paragraph written. ALL DAY. and we're not the definition of busy. i don't know what the deal is, i really don't. i didn't even have the where-with-all to start our new harry potter audio book this morning (i'm dragging matt through the series, we're on book three. he has a very long way to go.). i'm sort of all systems go on just getting a couple dozen goodies out the door on saturday. and a price list tomorrow. and samples on thursday. i never thought i'd be so excited for the fourth of july. normally it's a bummer to have a mid-week holiday but it's so much a blessing this week i'm practically singing. and while i'm singing i'm going to throw in a verse for my knee that ran this morning and does not hurt. i'm over run with blessings at the moment.